← The Rachel Maddow Show
The Rachel Maddow Show
A snake pit of jockeying egos in a cornucopia of back biting
00:42:56
Rachel Maddow looks at how Republican overreach in attempting to secure permanent power is already inspiring pro-democracy pushback while the Trump team goon squad fight and grift each other.
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- [00:00]
Rachel Maddow
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- [00:14]
Dan Blue
To the people Carl's Jr. S big.
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Dan Blue
Really happy to have you here. All right, so it started out. It started out as a bill about the rules for being a dentist. And it's said so explicitly in the title. A bill to be entitled An Act Making Various Changes to the Laws of Dentistry. Before reading this bill today, I had never before even thought about there being laws of dentistry. But there are laws of dentistry, apparently, and this new legislation was going to tighten up those laws. Laws about, for example, letting you do your dentist exams on mannequins, spelled M M A N I K I N S mannequins instead of on real people. That seems nice for the real people, not nice for the mannequins. Also, laws about letting the powers that be take away your dentistry license on account of your drunkenness. Lots of important ways of tightening up the laws around dentistry. So that was the bill, an act making various changes to the laws of dentistry. And that is, that is how that bill started. But then it changed. It changed a lot. North Carolina is one of the states where Republicans did not do as well as they wanted to in this past election. Yes, Trump did still win the state of North Carolina, which I think was the thing they most cared about. He won by about three points in the presidential race in North Carolina. But even as Trump won the presidential race there, the Republican candidate in North Carolina for governor, he lost that race in the state of North Carolina. The Republican candidate lost the lieutenant governor's race in North Carolina. The Republican candidate lost the attorney general's race in North Carolina. The Republican candidate lost the secretary of state's race in North Carolina. Also the Republican candidate to be state schools chief. This is a race I was particularly keeping my eye on the Republican Candidate lost that race in North Carolina, too. The reason I was watching that one close is because that was the race where the Republican candidate for schools chief said she wanted a pay per view public televised execution of former President Barack Obama. She also demanded the execution of President Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Anthony Fauci, a former New York governor, the current North Carolina governor, a member of Congress from Minnesota. Also, she wanted to execute Bill Gates. I mean, honestly, it was a lot from her. But she was the Republican Party's nominee for superintendent of public schools for the state of North Carolina this year, and she lost that election along with almost all the Republican candidates for statewide office in North Carolina. So, yes, in North Carolina this year, Trump won the presidential race, but Republicans lost almost everything else in the state heading into this election. North Carolina Republicans held a supermajority in that state legislature, but in this election, they lost that supermajority. Democrats made enough inroads in that state legislature this year in this election that Republicans in North Carolina no longer have a supermajority that allows them to override the veto, for example, from the governor. But that is where the laws of dentistry come into this story. Because Republicans in North Carolina, after this election, where they did not do as well as they wanted to, they know they're about to lose their supermajority in the state legislature. And they know that Democrats just won almost every statewide elected office in the whole state. Republicans know this is coming. And so in the face of that oncoming change, Republicans took this bill making various changes to the laws of dentistry. They took the laws of dentistry bill and they turned it into something very much not that, which is probably good news for drunken dentists, you know, bad news for mannequins. But it's also, it's also really big news, big audacious news for what Republicans are apparently trying to do in North Carolina on their way out the door. This is footage from the North Carolina state legislature. People being cleared out of a gallery in the state legislature for protesting against what the Republicans are trying to do with this bill that started off a dentistry bill and that has turned into something much more radical. Republicans took this laws of dentistry bill. They gutted it. They took out all the dentist stuff. They then decided they would call it their hurricane relief bill. You remember all the horrible storms in western North Carolina right before the election. They said it would be their hurricane relief bill. But what the bill actually does is it changes the state government in North Carolina. So all the state government positions that are about to be held by Democrats will have their power stripped away from them. The governor of North Carolina, for example, will no longer be allowed to appoint judges as he sees fit. Under this new bill, he will literally be required in certain circumstances to appoint judges that. That have been approved explicitly by the state Republican Party. The state Republican party has to approve the Democratic governor's judicial picks. The attorney general under this bill will not be allowed to oppose anything that is done by the Republicans in the state legislature, even if the attorney general thinks it's against the laws of the state. Power over the administration of elections in North Carolina would inexplicably, under this bill, it would inexplicably be moved wholesale into the office of the state auditor. The state auditor being in charge of elections. Why would Republicans change North Carolina state law so the state auditor is suddenly the person in charge of elections. Oh, oh. Because state auditor is the one race that Republicans won this year in North Carolina.
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Dave Bollock
State auditor candidate Dave Bollock. He said, I'm only in politics for you, sir.
- [07:12]
Dan Blue
I only.
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Dave Bollock
Where is Dave?
- [07:14]
Carl's Jr. Advertiser
Anybody that would say, Dave, if you say that and if you do you mean that, if you mean that, I'm for you all the way.
- [07:22]
Dave Bollock
Here's my endorsement.
- [07:26]
Dan Blue
I'm only in politics for you, sir. Imagine I'm only in politics to serve you, sir, to serve Donald Trump. That's the only reason I'm running for office, the only reason I'm interested in politics at all. I am here to serve you as an individual. That is the one Republican that won his race in North Carolina state government in a statewide race this year. But because they've just got this one guy in statewide office, the auditorium Republicans just rewrote the laws of the state so that that will be the guy who's in charge of the state's elections, Even though the state auditor job has nothing to do with elections whatsoever. It's like putting the dog catcher in charge of the water department. There's just no connection at all. But he is the one Republican, and so now he'll be the elections guy. This is what they have done with the dentistry bill. They hollowed out the dentist stuff. And this is what they've done since the election. And the CoC consequence of that? Well, one of the consequences thus far is that North Carolinians have been turning up at the state legislature, filling the gallery in the legislature, shouting down the Republicans while they've been forcing through this last minute after the election hijack the dentistry bill to try to make sure they can stay in power even after they've been voted out to stay in power in the administration of state government and the judiciary, also to control future elections. Right. Because relying on the votes of the people of North Carolina is clearly not a winning strategy of them. So they're trying to work around that so they can stay in power without the people's consent. North Carolina also elects its state supreme court justices. In this election, one Democratic supreme court justice appeared to win reelection by a really slim margin. Less than 700 votes. Somewhere around 700 votes. There's a recount underway in that race right now because it was such a slim margin in that recount. Republicans are trying to throw out 60,000 ballots. They're trying to have 60,000 votes not counted in that race. 60,000. That's a lot of people to take away the vote from. Right? I mean, but they think they can do it. These are provisional ballots that they say they don't want counted. Part of the reason there's so many. There's 60,000 provisional ballots in this race is because Republicans in the legislature put in place aggressive new restrictions on voting rights in time for this election. And that resulted in a lot of North Carolina voters having to cast provisional ballots. Now Republicans are fighting to not count those ballots at all as a way to try to take that seat on the state supreme court. The people casting their votes thing just has not been working all that great for Republicans in North Carolina. So now Republicans in North Carolina are trying to make sure that votes aren't everything, that there are other ways that they can keep and expand their power. And we really don't know how this is going to work out in North Carolina. This is a live issue right now. There are Republicans from the western part of the state who voted no on this bill in part because they were furious that this is what Republicans are calling their hurricane relief bill. It's like a quarter of what the governor asked the legislature for in terms of hurricane relief dollars. It doesn't actually move money to where the hurricane hit. It doesn't actually move money to the western part of the state. So some Republicans from the hard hit western part of North Carolina are balking at this so far voting no, even though they are Republicans. The Democrats are against this. The protesters in the gallery of the legislature are very much against it, as are groups of North Carolina clergy, faith leaders, groups like the poor people's campaign, led by the reverend William Barber, the Democratic governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper. He is presumably going to veto this thing and then, you know, wait to see whether all the public pressure against it. Whether the revulsion, even among some Republicans about what they're trying to do here will be enough to allow his veto to stand, or whether Republicans might be able to override that veto in the last days of their supermajority before they are pushed out. So we shall see. This is a live issue right now. And I start with this tonight, not just because this is an important story for North Carolina, right, this audacious small d anti Democratic power grab by Republicans there. It's not just important for an important state, it's also kind of a test. It's a character test, right, to see if we've really got the stomach right now for this kind of a fight. A fight in a very practical, very blunt sense for small D democracy. Because obviously that is what's being messed with here in North Carolina. Right? If you win an election to take office as an elected official, you winning the election means you should also get the powers of that, of that job. Right? There's nothing about administering elections that should be handed to partisan act actors so that one party has a leg up in trying to win future elections. That's just not the way it's supposed to work. Trying to force those things is an anti Democratic, anti small d Democratic power grab. But that happening so bluntly and so obviously causing revulsion in so many people in North Carolina. That, of course, is also happening in the larger context of what's happening in the country. And we are seeing, with the Republican Party ascending in Washington, we are seeing a really radical effort not to just advance and advocate for and plan to implement Republican policies. We're seeing a really radical effort to change the American system of government, to consolidate power in one man's hands, to consolidate power within the executive branch of government. All this talk you've heard about firing huge swaths of the federal government, wiping out whole departments, firing career law enforcement people, firing whole categories of civil servants. All of that is about consolidating power in the executive branch so there is no source of authority or judgment within the federal government except for the one guy at the top. Except for Trump, specifically. You've heard talk about them firing the FBI director, firing the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Those are jobs that don't turn over when the presidency turns over. They're specifically designed to be independent of the political cycle so that people in those jobs at the FBI and the Fed, they do what's right for the country and not just what's right for any particular president, but this insistence, this out loud insistence from The Republicans that Chris Wray at the FBI and Jerome Powell at the Fed somehow are gonna be fired and replaced by Trump because he's coming in as the new president. That's not how the American system of government is supposed to run. That's about him consolidating his power over the executive branch, including the parts of it that are supposed to be independent from his power and control. We are also seeing, even before the Republicans take power, efforts to consolidate power over the press. Not just threatening and intimidating reporters and news organizations, but now, you know, saying they're going to use the power of the government to do it. Having their presumptive appointees say that news organizations will be reviewed by the federal government according to their editorial decisions on news issues. We're finally now getting some widespread discussion about their efforts to consolidate power also in just one man, over the legislative branch of government. So over the fourth estate, the press over the executive branch, but also over the legislative branch, over Congress. Trump demanding that the Senate not confirm his nominees, threatening to force the Senate to shut down so he can install his nominees without any confirmation hearings or votes. Votes, right. That is an effort to consolidate his power in such a way that it marginalizes and renders inert and unimportant the legislative branch of government. In that case, specifically the Senate. But it's not just the Senate. With Trump's austerity commission, this thing where they're going to cut trillions of dollars out of the budget, an effort headed by eccentric right wing billionaire Elon Musk. In order to do that, they are reportedly planning on seizing for themselves what's usually called the power of the purse, taking it away from Congress, just unilaterally cutting and reshaping the whole federal government without Congress being involved at all. So in Washington, as Trump and the Republicans are preparing to take power, Trump is working really aggressively to consolidate all government power in Trump's hands. He's looking to consolidate all the power of the executive branch in his own hands. He's looking to consolidate all power in the government over the legislative branch. Supposed to be the co equal branch of government. Not going to be co equal anymore. He's trying to liminalize it, neuter it, make it unimportant, tell them what to do and expect them to do it. He's also trying to do the same thing over the fourth estate, the so called fourth branch of government, the free press. There's also the judiciary. So far, frankly, I think he's been delighted how he's being treated by the third Branch of government, by the courts, by the judiciary. So we don't yet see him moving to defy the courts or defy court orders. But don't rest on that. I think it's very possible that that is coming. I mean, honestly, if we're, I think if you take a wide view of what's happening thus far with Trump taking power, preparing to take power in Washington, you see the efforts to consolidate power in the executive branch, to liminalize the legislative branch. I think he's ignoring the judicial branch for now. But watch for it. Obviously the efforts to intimidate the press. Right. This is all about trying to make sure that he's the only source of authority in the federal government. Honestly, in terms of what to watch for next, I think we need to be watching for something that they call autocratic breakthrough. Autocratic breakthrough is when the party in power uses the power they do have in government to make sure they can never be dislodged from government. I'll give you a concrete example. You've already seen in the House of Representatives. Now that Mike Johnson is back in as Republican House speaker, they changed the rules in the House to make it much harder to remove him as Speaker. Right. So that's them digging in, planning to stay for the long run. Now we're here, you're not gonna be able to get us out. You've seen Trump, quote, joking, end quote, about expecting to stay in office for a third term once this second term is up. And that's of course against the Constitution. But he keeps repe. Repeatedly bringing up, bringing it up, that that's his expectation. Trump advisor, his one time campaign manager, Steve Bannon, saying things in public about how they're going to be ruling for 50 years. There won't be any way to dislodge them from power. Autocratic breakthrough is when they use the powers they've achieved through winning elections to cement themselves in power so they can't be removed by future elections or by other democratic means. So we are watching the efforts to consolidate power. We are watching for signs of autocratic breakthrough, trying to entrench themselves in power so they can't be removed. This is just the way these things go. This is how strong men rule. These are the things that they are trying. That said, so far, it's not clear that their efforts are going all that great. The fact that they just want these things doesn't mean that they get them. The fact that they're trying these things doesn't mean that they'll succeed. I mean, we've already seen terrible nominees like Matt Gaetz being laughed off of Capitol Hill and having to have his nomination withdrawn. We're seeing Senate Republicans not yet caving and not yet agreeing to shut themselves down so Trump can have his nominees installed with no confirmation hearings. The press turning out to be, yes, weak kneed and lily livered, as you might fear in some quarters, but also defiant and professional and aggressive and creative in other quarters. The American Free Press thus far, for example, has been doing a great job detailing the astonishing conflicts of interest and self dealing and deep incompetence and lack of qualification, the salacious and even allegedly criminal past dealings of the freak show lineup that Trump has announced as his nominees for high office. And we'll get to some of those this hour. So his intentions for who he wants to install and for what he wants to do and how he wants to consolidate power. So the American government is essentially just the will of one man. Those are just his intentions. And it's worth being clear that those are his intentions. It's worth reporting on it, following it, being very clear eyed about the fact that that's what he's trying to do. But just because those are his intentions, it doesn't mean those things are an inescapable fate for us as a country. Politics still works. Gravity still applies, the rules of nature still work. Each of these things they're trying is likely to be a fight and a test. And it's not just in Washington. It's everywhere there is a push against democracy. Everywhere there is a push against small d democracy. We are seeing that there is a push for it too, like in North Carolina right now. Joining us now is North Carolina State Senator Dan Blue. He is the Democratic leader in the Senate of the great state of North Carolina. Senator Blue, I really appreciate you making time to be here tonight. Thank you.
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Dave Bollock
Thank you for having me this evening, Rachel.
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Dan Blue
I know the situation in North Carolina, I think as well as anybody watching from a national perspective. You obviously are watching it from inside and, and much closer up. What should the American people, people watching us right now understand about what's been characterized as a power grab by Republicans in your state since the election?
- [22:09]
Dave Bollock
Well, you accurately describe it, Rachel, as a power grab, but it's something more than a power grab. I think it's a tantrum by the Republican leadership in the General assembly, not willing to accept the outcome of an election and not willing to accept the fact that they've lost some of these election and now it's consolidating power. It's taking extraordinary steps to basically grab that power for themselves. Taking it out of the judicial branch, taking it out of the executive branch. In our case, it happens to be the executive branch trying to seize the power. I mean, the legislative branch rather than the executive branch. But it's the same thing that you're witnessing all over the country, just led by a different group here in North Carolina.
- [22:57]
Dan Blue
Hmm. I was struck by the footage. It didn't get a lot of national attention, but we were able to look at North Carolina media, local news organizations in North Carolina, a bunch of social media stuff posted by different nonprofit and advocacy groups in North Carolina, and find what I found to be really interesting footage of the pushback by regular citizens. Dozens of protesters seemed actually to kind of interrupt the debate. A debate in which, as I understand it, no Republican lawmaker, Baker actually was willing to speak up to defend these changes. We've seen members of the clergy, we've seen groups like the Poor People's Campaign, led by Reverend William Barbour, speak against it. How would you describe the attention to this in the state and how your constituents are feeling about this and reacting to the bill?
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Dave Bollock
There's great attention to it. You described the marches led by Dr. Barber several years ago. Those people are still around. They're watching what's happening with their government. They don't want the power seized by folk that they don't elect. One of the points that is important to this is that this legislation that was passed last week also takes the power away from the Attorney General so that he can't intervene or get involved in certain cases unless it suits the whims of the Republican leadership in the legislature. And so people know that the Attorney General is supposed to protect their interest and intervene on their behalf. They're protesting that. They're protesting all of these powers that are taken from the governor, all of these powers that are taken from other branches and other places that they've been for half a century or more. And so the decision last week to clear the galleries really took everybody out, People who weren't protesting, but everybody who was coming to visit their government to see how it operated, the legislative branch of government. There was no effort to sort between those folks. But you can rest assured that people in North Carolina, the state that started this whole revolution in the United States with the Halifax Resolves in 1776, will still be intimately involved in self governance. And regardless of what the elected leadership in the legislature, the Republican leadership, regardless of what they do, that same spirit that hit North Carolina 248 years ago will still prevail and our people aren't going to take it. We believe very deeply in democracy and we're going to fight to preserve the institutions that were created to make sure that democracy still prevailed.
- [25:42]
Dan Blue
North Carolina State Senate Democratic Leader Dan Blue Senator Blue, thank you for those closing, rousing comments and thanks for making time to join us tonight. It's good to have you here, sir.
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Dave Bollock
Thank you, Rachel. It's been my pleasure.
- [25:55]
Dan Blue
All right, we got much more ahead here tonight. Stay with us.
- [26:00]
International Rescue Committee Representative
Support for the Rachel Maddow show comes from the International Rescue Committee. The IRC works in more than 40 countries serving people whose lives have been upended by war, conflict and natural disasters. In places like Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, displaced families are experiencing war, extreme hunger and life threatening injuries. The ongoing violence, bombardment and blockade in Gaza have caused more than 2 million Palestinians, half of them children, to be without clean water, food and critical medical care. The lack of safe water, medicine and healthy food contributes to the spread of diseases and children are especially at risk. In Gaza, the International Rescue Committee is directly delivering water, sanitation and hygiene services and has launched direct nutrition and child and women's protection programming. The IRC works around the world to help families in crisis by delivering critical supplies such as therapeutic food, clean water, cash assistance and more. Your donation will help support this work and help children and families survive. Donate@rescue.org Rebuild this podcast is supported by.
- [27:02]
Rachel Maddow
Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Planned Parenthood Federation of America exists so all people can get access to the sexual and reproductive care and education they need. Planned Parenthood organizations advocate for health equity and policies that allow people the freedom to control their own bodies, lives and futures. More than 2 million patients a year rely on Planned Parenthood Health center services like STI testing and treatment, birth control, gender affirming care, abortion, cancer screenings and more. Reprogram reproductive health care and rights are under attack from public officials who are out of step with the will of the vast majority of Americans. The constitutional right to abortion has been stolen and politicians in 47 states have introduced bills that would block people from getting the sexual and reproductive care they need. Planned Parenthood knows that equitable access to health care, including safe, legal abortion, is a human right. Right now, Planned Parenthood needs your help to protect access to health care. Donate today by visiting plannedparenthood.org protect the.
- [28:03]
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- [28:37]
Dan Blue
So here's one of the complaints this was filed with the Better Business Bureau after filling out an online form to get health insurance information. Within three seconds, I began getting bombarded by phone calls. When I asked the representative to stop, she said the auto dialer would not stop until I provided my information. Quote, I don't know how to get them to stop after 18 calls in an hour and a half. I am 64 years old and this is causing me unnecessary stress. Here's another Insurance agents repeatedly called my 86 year old father, who is deaf, has dementia and lives in an assisted living facility. This person says this insurance agent somehow convinced his deaf elderly father with dementia to dump his health insurance plan that he'd had for more than 20 years in exchange for a plan that the person on the phone was hard selling him on. In these repeated phone calls, the complaint says, quote, clearly this company is conducting fraud and financial elder abuse. The company that's the subject of these complaints is essentially a telemarketer that targets people who have Medicare. So the company calls people up and tries to convince them that they should dump their Medicare plan run by the federal government and instead switch to a private alternative. And if the telemarketer is successful in convincing or tricking or berating the old person on the phone into doing that, into agreeing, well, then the telemarketer collects a handsome fee from the new insurance company that they've just got. This new signup for New York magazine has some great reporting on this out today. The company told the magazine they do not engage in this, quote, kind of conduct. Nevertheless, this telemarketing firm has had dozens of individual complaints waged against it with the Better Business Bureau. Tells you something about how they operate. That said, big picture. Who cares about a litany of heartbreaking elder abuse complaints like that when the company also has a powerful and charismatic celebrity endorser? Hey everybody, I'm here today at the medicareadvantage.com helpline center. We're in Charlotte, North Carolina, here to meet the team helping folks just like you with their coverage options. Ah, folks just like you. That, of course is the TV doctor, Dr. Mehmet Oz. And his enthusiasm for this particular company might conceivably have something to do with the fact that he personally holds hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in some of the companies that provide this private insurance that you might switch people onto if you can convince them to give up their Medicare in repeated, repeated, repeated phone calls. His financial stake in this matter came to light a few years ago, back when Dr. Oz was running as the Trump endorsed candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, campaigning on a platform to privatize all of Medicare. And, you know, that would have all been a lot of baggage to carry into the United States Senate had he won that Senate seat. Right? Campaigning to privatize Medicare while he was financially benefiting from such a policy change with his own personal stock holdings, his promotion of Medicare privatization schemes, I mean, perhaps that is what motivated Pennsylvania voters to not elect Mehmet Oz as their United States Senator. It'd be quite something to drag all that with you into the Senate. It's another thing entirely to drag all that into the federal government because Dr. Oz is now going to be the person in charge of Medicare for the federal government. But that, of course, is what Donald Trump has just announced. He has announced that he is naming Dr. Mehmet Oz as his pick for the next administrator of Medicare and Medicaid. Yes, with that guy's record on Medicare. Dr. Oz, of course, is the TV doctor who once claimed that red onions can prevent ovarian cancer, green coffee beans are a miracle weight loss cure. He has pushed the false claim that dodgy malaria medicines can treat Covid. And what do you know, he owns a mountain of stocks in related companies, including the makers of the malaria drug he was hawking for Covid. And he's about to be a major decision maker about healthcare in this country, in charge of the federal government program he was campaigning to privatize and planning to personally profit from if and when. That happened on the heels of Donald Trump picking him to run Medicare and Medicaid in this country, we also got news on other healthcare picks. To run the cdc, Donald Trump picked a former Republican congressman who for years has crusaded on the false claim that vaccines must be the cause of autism. To lead the National Institute of Health, Trump's top candidate endorsed herd immunity as the best way to address the COVID pandemic. Just a fancy way of saying, let's get everybody sick and see what happens. Cull the weak, cull the elderly. Then there's Trump's pick for Surgeon general, the nation's top doctor. She is a TV personality herself. She went to a for profit medical school in the Caribbean. She has no public health experience whatsoever. But she does appear regularly on the Fox. That's nothing to say of the guy who is the leading anti vaccine crank and quack in the United States, who is considered to be responsible for a totally preventable considered to be largely responsible for a totally preventable healthcare crisis that actually took dozens of lives in this country. And that story's next.
- [34:35]
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- [35:37]
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- [36:02]
Dan Blue
This is the biggest increase in deaths we've seen since records began. The figure of 32 dead is up from 25 only yesterday. These hospitals aren't designed to deal with this, and I think the minute you're getting hospitals running at 2 and 300%.
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International Rescue Committee Representative
Capacity, I think that speaks for itself.
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Dan Blue
It's incredibly serious. That was an Australian news station reporting from the island nation of Samoa in 2019. And if it seems familiar, it may look and sound like the kind of news reports we saw from all over the world in 2020 during the global COVID pandemic. But this was not about COVID And this all happened before COVID This was 2019. This outbreak in Samoa. It killed more than 80 people, many of them young kids. The government had to order lockdowns to try to save people's lives, charities from around the world had to ship children's coffins to Samoa to deal with a shortage of coffins there for all the little kids and babies who were dying. What Samoa was experiencing in 2019 was an epidemic of measles, a preventable epidemic. And I say that because measles is a disease for which there has been an effective vaccine available for more than 60 years. That entirely preventable disease outbreak in Samoa in 2019 is now newly relevant because one of the factors that contributed to that outbreak was a sudden onset of hostility to vaccination on the island. And that hostility was stoked in large part by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Who Donald Trump has just tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy's anti vaccine organization, Children's Health Defense, very aggressively spread anti vaccine propaganda not only in the United States, but around the world and in Samoa. They claimed that the measles vaccine itself was the cause of the outbreak and not the solution to it. RFK Jr. Personally lobbied the governor of Samoa, telling the governor that vaccination was what caused the spread of measles, not what needed to be done to stop the spread of it. And that's insane. As journalist Brian Deer writes in a new op ed for the New York Times today, quote, I was in Samoa during that outbreak as part of my more than 16 years of reporting on the anti vaccine movement. The cause of the outbreak was not the vaccine, but most likely an infected traveler who brought the virus from New Zealand, which that year had the biggest measles outbreaks in decades, especially among that country's indigenous and Pacific Islander communities. Migration and poverty were likely factors in a sudden spread of measles in Samoa and in New Zealand. But as an editorial in the New Zealand Medical Journal reported, so too was a factor that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Specializes in. Increasing circulation of misinformation, leading to distrust and reduced vaccination uptake. Joining us now is Brian Deer. He's a journalist and the author of the book the Doctor who Fooled the World about the anti vaccine movement. Mr. Deere, I really appreciate you taking time to join us today. Thank you.
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Brian Deer
Pleasure, Rachel. Nice to be here.
- [39:16]
Dan Blue
I think that since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Associated himself both with this presidential election, first as an independent candidate and then secondly with Donald Trump now, especially since he's been put forward for this very powerful health, powerful health post, I think Americans have started to hear about his very troubling role in this deadly outbreak in Samoa. But I still think the concept of it, the idea Idea of it is fuzzy to a lot of people. Can you describe to us the nature of the outbreak, how severe it was and why he's associated with it and thought to be potentially partially responsible for the death toll?
- [39:50]
Brian Deer
Well, the plot thickens from what you were saying a moment ago, in that it's almost certain that the virus got into Samoa by flight from Auckland and just a little while before that, that friends of Kennedy had been in Auckland in New Zealand with a film which had been promoted in the United States by Robert De Niro and got a lot of attention in the United States, which was suggesting that there was fraud at the CDC in Atlanta. There actually wasn't, but. So they'd been touring in Auckland and South Auckland, where a lot of Pacific Islander communities there which became very, very susceptible. It was that that year New Zealand saw the biggest outbreak of measles in decades. So it was no surprise, really, that that virus did get onto an aircraft and got its way out to Samoa. And Mr. Kennedy really has questions to answer about his relationship with the people who made that film. It was called Vaxed. And Mr. Kennedy became the executive producer of sequel Vax 2, and was a close colleague of the people who went out to New Zealand and also to Australia to promote fear of vaccines. So that's where it came from and the catastrophic consequences that I witnessed on the island. I spent much of a week of the time I was there just simply talking to mothers about the loss of their children. And it was really awful to listen to them. And I found myself at the end of it all just sitting in a cathedral and crying and crying. I couldn't stop crying as the accumulation of pain from these mothers really consumed me. It was awful.
- [41:49]
Dan Blue
Why would somebody like RFK Jr have influence in a place like Samoa as to whether or not people vaccinated their kids? Why would his influence in particular be something that sort of perniciously accelerated the risk there?
- [42:07]
Brian Deer
Well, his name opens doors. He's always known that. I mean, he's really not a lot more than his name is he. He's not a particularly good lawyer. He pays himself. The last time I looked, $500,000, half a million dollars a year to run Children's Health Defence, which he set up himself. But he's not a particularly distinguished man in his own right. But he got out to Samoa, he went to visit them, he went to see the Prime Minister and, as you say, tried to convince the Prime Minister that it was, in fact the vaccine that was causing the deaths and not the measles. Virus, extraordinary thing to do. But, you know, he's been making this kind of mischief for many years now.
- [42:49]
Dan Blue
Journalist and author Brian Deer, the author of the Doctor who fooled the world. Mr. Deere, I appreciate you being with us for this and I'd love to have you back to talk with you more about this in the future, if you don't mind. Great. Thank you very much for your time tonight. We'll be right back. So about 10 days ago, the New York Times published a profile of an advisor to President elect Donald Trump, a guy by the name of Boris Epstein. They titled it, quote, the Trump lawyer who wields outsize influence on the next White House. Quote, there's nobody in the president elects orbit who at this point would doubt the level of Mr. Epstein's influence. He has quickly become one of the most powerful figures in the early days of the presidential transition. He's become a significant gatekeeper for Trump, including shaping some of the information he receives about personnel and cabinet selections. Epstein was reportedly pivotal in securing the ultimately doomed nomination of Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General of the United States. Also the nomination of Trump's chosen White House counsel. Now, we've been through one Trump transition and one Trump administration before, so what comes next is as obvious to you as it is to me, right? In the snake pit of jockeying egos that Trump cultivates around himself. If this guy Boris is seen as ascendant right now in terms of his influence, then of course, all of the other snakes are activated. All the other people in Trump's orbit will soon come for Boris. Right? It's inevitable. It's like the sun rising in the east. Somebody's important. Not for long. Cue today's headlines. CNN first to report on allegations flying inside the Trump transition that old Boris has been trying to cash in on his proximity to Trump. Imagine what's described as, quote, an internal investigation by Trump lawyers reportedly found that Boris Epstein asked potential Trump cabinet nominees to pay him for his help getting them nominated, to pay him as much as $100,000 per month. Among the people Epstein supposedly tried to shake down was Trump's ultimate nominee for Treasury, Scott Besant, who at least according to this internal Trump, quote, legal review, reportedly did not cough up the cash. He reportedly did not pay Boris Epstein before being selected for the job. There's even a report published in a super Trump friendly right wing outlet that Besant, possibly in consultation with Vice President elect J.D. vance's office, he participated in kind of a amateur sting operation against Boris Epstein in which he tried to get Epstein on tape asking him for money in exchange for the nomination. I should say MSNBC and NBC News have not confirmed any of this reporting. Boris Epstein, however, tells us, quote, I am honored to work for President Trump and with his team. These fake claims are false and defamatory and will not distract us from making America great again. But of course it was going to be like this, right? Of course, the Trump transition, and presumably the next Trump term, will be a cornucopia of infighting and backbiting and Trump's allies all trying to sabotage each other, not only only in the press, but any other underhanded way they can. Of course it was going to be like this. More seriously, though, these allegations that Boris was collecting cash or trying to collect cash in exchange for getting people put in the cabinet, it raises the prospect that Trump cabinet offices are for sale. Right? The possibility that people would think there is a possibility of buying one because there at least has now been a published price for what it takes to get one. The internal review by Trump lawyers supposedly found that Epstein didn't get money from anyone, that he wasn't able to collect his price for getting anybody installed in the cabinet. That jibes with what we heard as well. But we have asked if we can see this supposed review. Think they'll ever make it public? Think they'll ever give it to us? Watch this space. We have a best new thing in the world today. Her name is Flynn Mary Donovan. She has just arrived in the lives of our dear colleague, senior producer Jen Mulraney Donovan, and her big, wonderful family. Look at her. Flynn Mary, you are perfect. Not just because your mom says so. You are plain perfection in your little hospital hat. Flynn Mary Donovan. And welcome to the world. Best new thing in the world today. God bless you.
- [47:41]
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